Confucius is the romanization of his Chinese name, Kong Tzu. We call him Confucius because missionaries writing in Latin and Spanish during the 16th century did not have a more accurate way

Confucius is the romanization of his Chinese name, Kong Tzu. We call him Confucius because missionaries writing in Latin and Spanish during the 16th century did not have a more accurate way of translating Chinese. Confucius was a scholar and a minister in ancient China as the Zhou dynasty was weakening, between 551 and 479 BC. He went around, trying to encourage the lords and nobles to adopt the precepts laid down by historical figures like the Duke of Zhou. He was particularly worried about the increasing corruption and selfishness of the aristocrats, who he saw as failing in their important social function. He accurately predicted that their greed and hunger for power would lead to war and chaos, and that nobles needed to pursue virtue to fulfill their responsibility as leaders.
Of course, what powerful men want to hear is not “You are not sufficiently virtuous and you need to try harder to be a better person”. Instead, it is usually “You are a great person who is perfect in every way”. Hence, Confucius had a hard time keeping a job as a government advisor. Yet he did not want to “sell out”. His honesty and discipline did not give him any followers among the ruling class, but he was able to gain followers who were fellow scholars concerned about the increasing instability of China and the corruption of its ruling class. When he died, these followers laid down his teachings in a text called the Analects.
His main teachings
Confucius emphasized a number of things in his teaching.
(1) He thought that it was important for people to study the history of China to discover what made the kings and nobles of the early Zhou dynasty and earlier leaders more virtuous. If we understood them and read the historical texts about them, we could secure an understanding of ourselves, our place in history, and what makes truly great kings.
(2) He emphasized a number of virtues, in particular – (1) ritual propriety, (2) filial piety, and (3) benevolence.
Ritual propriety consists of making sure to follow the religious rituals of society. These religious rituals consisted of all sorts of things, like prayers to ancestors and requests to the rain god. He himself did not necessarily believe in the gods behind these rites, but nonetheless saw them as important. The reason why is interesting – he saw these rituals as important not because of the Gods, but because rituals bring people together.
Filial piety is about respecting one’s elders and authorities. Children should respect their parents, subjects should respect their political leaders, and villagers should respect their village elders. However, filial piety is about more than just that. Not only do children have responsibilities to respect their parents, and not only do subjects have responsibilities to respect their leaders, but parents have a responsibility to be warm and loving parents, and political leaders have a responsibility to be wise and kind leaders. Thus, for the Confucians, hierarchies are important, but the duties work both ways.
Benevolence is about doing good for others. For Confucius, the failings of society in his time period were driven by the fact that people were insufficiently benevolent, particularly the leaders. If they practiced kindness and compassion towards their people, and genuinely acted in the interests of subjects, the whole empire would be a nicer place to live.
(3) Confucius also emphasized the need for virtuous leaders. This can be seen in the virtues I just mentioned. Politicians cannot just be powerful or intelligent people, but must also be good people who care about the wellbeing of all.
There were other things that came up in Confucius’s philosophy, but these are some of the most important points he made.
Virtue ethics
Confucius is often described as a virtue ethicist. If you remember in the first week, I included a list of different schools of ethics, and virtue ethics is one of the three big ones. It’s most exemplary figure in Western philosophy was Aristotle, and many of the schools of thinking Hadot mentioned are forms of virtue ethics too, like Stoicism.
What is common to all forms of virtue ethics is the belief that the source of good is not just in doing good things and causing pleasure for other people, or following certain rules about how we “should” and “should not” act, but in being a good person. If one is a good person, they will do good things and bring pleasure to all. What makes us a good person is having virtue. The exemplar of virtue which Aristotle uses is courage, or the virtue of squarely confronting one’s fears and not being overcome by them. For Aristotle, a virtuous person has the virtue of courage. What this means is that, in situations where he is faced with something that produces fear, he does the right thing and goes for it.
However, virtues are not created in a night. They need to be habituated over a long period of time. One does not merely do courageous things because they want to – they need to confront their fears and overcome them again and again. Only by doing that do they gain the habit of overcoming one’s fear. It is also important to note that, for Aristotle, virtues were “happy means”, or averages, between two extremes. It was better to be courageous than to be a coward, however one could also be “foolhardy” or “brash”, which like cowardice is an unhealthy condition.
Being “Brash” is what someone who shouts “YOLO!!!” before skateboarding off of a roof – they are clearly not cowardly, but they are still being stupid. That was one case where they should have listened to their fear, since their fear was telling them something useful – that skateboarding off of a roof is dangerous, and that because one only lives once, it would be better not to waste a few months with a broken leg! It was important to be courageous, not cowardly, but one should not stray too far into brashness and foolhardiness.
What was the purpose of virtue for Aristotle? “Eudaimonia”, or a term usually translated to “wellbeing” or “happiness”. With virtue came a good, comfortable, healthy life and the ability to overcome any challenge.
Confucius’s theory of virtue differed greatly from Aristotle’s, though there are many important similarities. Like Aristotle, he thought that virtue needed to be practiced throughout one’s life. For Confucius, virtues needed to be cultivated and taken care of. Also like Aristotle, being virtuous led to wellbeing and happiness.
However, unlike Aristotle, the main upshot to virtue was not eudaimonia, but a happy society. With virtue comes a happy, stable social system and government. With a virtuous emperor, all of the people could be happy. If the people are virtuous, then they will be able to fulfill all of the needs of their neighbors with respect.
Video on the thought of Confucius:
Even if he did not succeed in advising people in his own lifetime, eventually Confucius’s thought would be recorded and spread throughout all of China. Due to his emphasis on being good to people, the Han dynasty, the second dynasty which ruled China, saw Confucianism as a useful ideology to get away with the cruelty and abuse of the Emperor Qin.
The most famous Confucian philosopher to come after Confucius was Mencius, who really created the modern notion of Confucianism we have today.
1. a reflection on benevolence?

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